


Got a Minute?

by matrixrefugee



Category: The Laundry Files - Charles Stross
Genre: Gen, Office drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3690141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day at the office, where the worst madness may not come from the eldritch abominations that the Laundry deals with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got a Minute?

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the main events of "The Atrocity Archives", and featuring a typical day in the office. Written for "comment_fic"'s "any. any.
> 
> "Are you sure this computer isn't just demon-possessed?"
> 
> "Not this time.""

"Bob, you got a minute?" the voice of Fred from Accounting asks from the doorway.

I look up from reading my email, quickly minimizing the window before his unauthorized gaze happened to catch things it didn't have access to seeing, not that he'd understand a tenth of the text he might manage to read. "I might," I said, giving him as non-committal an answer as I could muster, hoping it would put him off and he'd go dun the requested minute off someone else.

"Don't think it'll take more than a minute: my screen is frozen again," he said.

At least once a day, Fred comes out from his lair and asks me some basic question, everything short of how to press the keys to get the text onto the screen or how to move the mouse, though the buttons have been known to confuse him.

I decide not to be That Guy and I get up, pausing to put my desktop on hibernate. "Let's have a look," I say, letting him lead me to his office, which is a third larger than mine and actually has a window.

Sure enough, the screen has unfrozen in the time it took him to fetch me, and in the meantime, a cluster of menacing grey dialogue boxes have popped up like mushrooms in any anything but delightful faery ring. I sat down and with a few taps, pulled up the C:\ drive which, no surprise, was a veritable IT version of an HPA lab.

"Well, those weren't there when I left it," Fred notes, then darting a look at me, he adds, "Are you sure it's not demon possessed?"

I want to joke that it is, but certain parties higher on the pay grade wouldn't take it well; also, there are viruses that can transcend past the screen and ravage a person's mind, but they aren't the sort that would lurk in an accounting office drone's desktop, since they're more likely to be weaponized by terrorists trying to get around a bored guard at a nuclear installation. "No, not this time. When's the last time you updated the AV?" I ask.

"The what's that?" Fred asks with dumb surprise.

"Anti-virus software," I reply, reminding myself he's a duffer.

"I don't recall: the program always slows things down whenever it scans, so I shut it off," he replies.

I realize I'm going to have to give him the kind of speech that a doctor has to give to a recalcitrant patient who's put on a stone more than he should and refuses to believe it has anything to do with overconsumption of red meat and a sedentary lifestyle. "You've got a dog, right?"

"Yes, we got a cocker for the kids, what does this have to do with it?" Fred asks patiently.

"You get Bonzo a rabies shot and a de-wormer every so often?" I ask.

"Yes, of course, any responsible pet-parent does," he says. I try not to grind my molars; as much as I respect anyone's fondness for their animal companion, the phrase makes one think the human has some latent form of lycanthropy of the psychosis variety or whatever it is if a feline is involved, and not the sort that makes one actually howl at the moon.

"AV is like a de-wormer for your computer, or for that matter, it makes it taste bad so that the worms leave it alone," I reply, digging around in the program files for the AV and activating it. The hard drive cranks and whines like a cross between a car with faulty power steering and a seven year old with a stomach bug. "Just keep the updates turned on and this likely won't happen again. I'll turn the scan on to run at night, when you're not here, so it won't slow you up."

That satisfies Fred and his nondescript block of a face cracks a smile of relief and gratitude. "As long as it lets me finish a report that's due," he says.

I glance at the screen, watching the progress of the scan. "That's going to take a few minutes, and then the machine will need a restart," I say.

His face falls the minute I say that.


End file.
